


Fare Thee Well

by Thedupshadove



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Abuser's POV, Also we waive canon a little bit: Tim was with Carmilla but only just barely, Carmilla was not by any stretch a good mother, Character Study, Gen, but she wanted to be, but she wasn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25020460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thedupshadove/pseuds/Thedupshadove
Summary: As the cold of space begins to find its way into her bones, Carmilla wonders if she should have expected this.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 87





	Fare Thee Well

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I just...wanted to do a different take on Carmilla. Just to see if I could.

As the cold of space begins to find its way into her bones, Carmilla wonders if she should have expected this. 

They had all been so closed off lately. Grumpy and distant and uninclined to even try to make pleasant conversation. Jonny especially, even more-so than was his usual wont. Had they been planning this, among themselves? But even when she saw them talking to each other, they looked so serious, so upset. Aren’t conspiracies supposed to be fun?

Was it the new one who drove them to this—Jonny’s little Earth soldier? No, no, he’d been the closest to friendly with her these past few weeks. Cautious, and still raw, but willing to talk. No, this has to have come from her older children. But why?

She had liked having them around. The loneliness and boredom of eternity were much easier to ignore in a ship full of shooting and jamming and laughter. From the very beginning, when she found the dying Vangelis boy on New Texas, and offered him eternity at her side, she had felt herself infused with an energy she hadn’t felt in quite some time. And of course she had readily agreed to help him take revenge on this “Jack” person. Mothers were supposed to give presents, after all.

And then there had been the ship, fleeing the revolution below, but instead of the mass of useless, frightened fops she had expected, she and Jonny had found a single, solitary, _beautiful_ girl. That beauty had moved her, stirred her heart. Oh, no, not like that. It’s just...that willowy frame, graceful like the dancer on a music box. Those big gray eyes in that angular, delicate face. Everything about her so fragile-looking. Like a doll. Suddenly, Carmilla had known that she wanted a daughter, a pretty little girl to balance out her rowdy little boy. 

And then there had been Malone. She had been noticing changes in the two of them recently; Jonny’s manic glee taking on too much genuine rage and Nastya’s aristocratic grace hardening into coldness. She thought perhaps that if she took them to someplace so grim, so full of backstabbing and deceit, it might make them appreciate their own life a little more. But then their eyes had been caught by a fire on such a rainy day, and they had found them, young and angry and choking to death. She had seen Jonny and Nastya instinctively helping them up, trying to save them, which was not at all their universal response to people in trouble, and oh of _course_! They had needed somebody new, an extra face and voice and body. Aurora was too big for just three. Two siblings are a fight waiting to happen; three siblings are a family. So she picked them the rest of the way up, and gladly replaced their ruined lungs, sure as she was that they would be exactly what this family needed. And for their adoption present, they had even asked for vengeance in fire, just like her oldest had! That must be a good sign. 

It hadn’t work out quite like she had hoped. Oh, Ashes had bonded with the other two fairly quickly, but it seemed like their presence had only lead to more moments of discontent, more of a feeling of rift—like there was her, and then there were the others. Early on, she had seen Jonny talking to Ashes, and Ashes listening intently, but when she had approached, they had hastily tried to pretend that they hadn’t been talking. Why? What was missing? What did they still need? She had thought she’d found it when the young librarian had stumbled out of the remains of the great citadel, collapsing on the floor before her. What they needed was an intellectual touch, a gentler kind of soul. True, Jonny had flashed a stormy look when she brought her newest little one on board, but he had hastily changed his expression when she looked directly at him, so he must have realized that it was silly, whatever it was. And if Nastya had looked sad as she watched Carmilla carefully insert the positronic brain...well, she was quite probably jealous of having another girl around. So Carmilla had made sure to give her extra hugs and kisses for the next few days, to remind her that she would always be her Princess. 

Ivy, as she hesitantly called herself upon waking, had seemed quiet and afraid, not coming out of her shell no matter _how_ much special attention Carmilla had made sure to pay her. But out of the corner of her eye, she had seen the others warming to the new girl, treating her with a gentleness that did a mother proud. 

She isn’t sure why she had been so willing to take in the random man they had found spaced without a suit. His frozen body had looked a little too old to be added to her children, but his poor face, eyes quite literally frozen wide. It had roused something protective in her, despite his age. Besides, she was still a scientist, and there was a practical experiment in Utilitarianism versus Deontology that she had been itching to try…

Again, she had seen the others holding gentle conference with him when they thought she wasn’t looking, and _this_ time she had been able to pick up some of the words. The way they had been talking about her—ridiculous! As if she was some sort of volcano, a sleeping giant one must take exquisite pains not to wake, lest something terrible happen. They must have been...playing a prank on the new boy, yes?

Or...no, she had realized, it wasn’t a prank, per se, it was a game. A grand game of make-believe, the children joining together in opposition to their mother the monster. Well, she would certainly not let it be said that she could not indulge her children in their play. So she had made sure to play her part well, to stalk and glower and shake her fist like the proper pantomime villain. And in their alternating flinches and defiance, she had seen playfulness. She had seen love. 

She had found a wooden automaton on the cold remains of a planet recently ripped apart by war. Pets! Pets were a thing that families did, right? And oh it was adorable, with its painted-on mustache and high chipper voice. _Just_ the thing for her children, who had been playing their little game _so_ well. And Jonny had shot it the first time it spoke to him! Such high spirits. 

She hadn’t wanted to let him join the Moon War, but it had been the first time in nearly a century that he had said please for anything, and that had touched her heart so much she had even let him take the Toy Soldier with him. It could do with the exercise. She had missed him terribly, while he was gone. Missed his laughter and his singing and the funny way he would constantly try to murder her. The others had missed him too, she could tell. They had still played their game of “We’re all afraid of Mother”, but there had been less energy in it. Rather than standing up to spar with her, they had mostly just hid. 

So she had been ecstatic when the hail-receptor on the ship had lit up, indicating that he had pressed the button on the hailer he had brought with him. That meant that he wanted to be retrieved. But she had certainly been surprised when, bounding back onto the ship, he had dragged behind him a screaming, hysterical boy with bleeding holes in place of eyes. But frenzied explanations of murderous rampages and royal executions and exploding moons had soon faded into the background and what was really important had emerged: Jonny had made a _friend_! A friend he wanted to keep. Well, she would happily oblige. “Can you help him?”, Jonny had breathlessly asked, and of course she had. Only the best for Jonny’s friends. 

And so then it had been eight on the ship, and once again she had seen the others explaining to the new baby of the bunch (Tim. His name was Tim.) about how he might fit into their great, never-ending game.

Watching the Aurora retreat away from her, she supposes, now, that it must not have felt like a game to them. 

She could go back, of course. Catch up to the ship and make her way back aboard, and now that she understands maybe she could change, and things could be _better_ , and—

Who is she kidding?

For change is a difficult thing when you’re immortal. Almost as difficult as relating to others. And if she had missed their pain, their fear, their genuine anger for all those years...if she had kept it from herself and turned it into a game because she hadn’t wanted to let go of her Happy Family…maybe she really does have to go. 

Besides, if they weren’t playing, then the way that each new arrival would be taken in with gentle hands that belied the crew’s treatment of the rest of the universe...the way Jonny would jump in between when she was menacing one of the others. The way Brian would argue with her for hours about why some potential punishment was wrong, or wouldn’t yield good results. The bonds she’d seen from between all of them over the decades... _oh_.

They love each other...because they hate her. If she goes back, if she makes them love her...what happens to their bond?

In a way, perhaps it’s not so bad. After all, giving up your happiness for your children, standing aside to let them grow, even if it means that they resent you...that’s something that mothers do, right? Children grow up. They have to leave the nest. Granted, in this case, they appear to have taken the nest _with_ them, but oh well. She can live with that. She’ll make that sacrifice, for her darlings. Yes. 

She hears about them in the following millennia, from time to time. Tales of the swath of destruction they cut through the universe, and the beautiful music they leave in their wake, and her chest swells with pride. But she never speaks up to claim them, only enjoying the inner warmth of _That’s them! Those are my babies_! And every once in a while she thinks that she should seek them out, that surely a visit wouldn’t hurt, that enough time must have passed for it to be alright for her to explain…

No. No, she exists in their memory as the villain who bound them together, and she will not interfere with that. And maybe, when she finds a young woman bleeding in the remains of a lab, and the sight of those beautiful wings all torn up gets the better of her, or when she happens to be in the right place at the right time to rescue a second-son-of-some-noble medical student from some gentlemen who had gotten rather... _impatient_ with his persistent gambling debts, perhaps she looks at each of them in turn, sleeping off the Mechanization process, and thinks to herself that maybe she should try again, that this time she’ll know better, and pay them more attention, and be gentler….

But both times, she shakes herself, and remembers that it wouldn’t work. So she gives them each a description of the Aurora and her crew, and sets them off to find them, sending with them only a note, which simply reads “He/She is one of you.”

And then, in a century or two, the stories she hears will include some description that makes it clear the newcomer has been accepted. Probably, she muses to herself, they were hurried aboard and offered tea and sympathy, while dark mutterings went around the older crew about _oh the poor thing_ and _what has that monster done now?_

They’ll never understand. Oh well.

**Author's Note:**

> So in the absence of the coveted Raph And Marius Backstory, I have settled on “Dear estranged children, I got caught up in messing around and now you have another sibling. You should probably take care of them, because at this point we all know that I can’t. Love, mom.”


End file.
